


Cage

by scribblemoose



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-10-20
Updated: 2002-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-08 21:05:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemoose/pseuds/scribblemoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a songfic, based on the song 'Control'*, which belongs to the glorious and wonderful Puddle of Mudd, written by Wes Scantlin and Brad Steward, copywright by WB Music Corp & Puddle of Mudd. You can hear it on their web site if you don't already know it.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Cage

**Author's Note:**

> This is a songfic, based on the song 'Control'*, which belongs to the glorious and wonderful Puddle of Mudd, written by Wes Scantlin and Brad Steward, copywright by WB Music Corp &amp; Puddle of Mudd. You can hear it on their web site if you don't already know it.

_I love the way you look at me  
I feel the pain you place inside  
You lock me up inside your dirty cage  
Well I'm alone inside my mind._

Squall heard the footsteps coming down the hall. He knew who it was.

He'd opened the door before Seifer arrived, leaned against the doorframe, waiting.

"Damn, Leonhart, don't you ever stand up straight?"

"What d'you want, Seifer?"

He was close now, Squall could smell leather and cigarette smoke.

"You know what I want."

"What if I don't move?" They were nose to nose now, Squall could feel Seifer's breath on his face. "What then?" He lowered his voice to a deep-throated whisper. "Would you take me right here?"

He felt satisfaction at the tiny blink of surprise that crossed Seifer's face.

"You know I would," he said, planting a large hand square in the middle of Squall's chest, pushing him back into the room. "But I don't think you're ready for that kind of exposure just yet." The door shut behind him with a click.

Squall recovered his balance and answered the challenge in Seifer's eyes with a cold smile. His heart was pounding, adrenaline surging. "You can't take me, Seifer."

"Oh, but I can." So sure, so confident. He crossed the four paces between them in an instant and locked his mouth on Squall's, no hesitation. Taking, taking, taking.

Seifer shrugged his coat off without breaking the kiss, undid his jeans and pulled Squall's hand to his erection. Squall felt a thrill up his spine as he touched hot, hard flesh. Seifer's arrogance was as breathtaking as his kisses, and it set him on fire.

"Whenever I want, Leonhart." Squall let his head fall back as Seifer trailed vicious kisses down his neck. "You can't survive without me."

Squall let his mind go blank, lust providing release from the pain of reason. Seifer pushed Squall to his knees and fucked his mouth until they both came, Squall swallowing Seifer's bitter tribute with steel in his eyes as his triumph flowed into his own hand.

"Fuck Leonhart, you're so good at that."

Squall felt fingers in his hair, caressing, soft, revealing a chink of vulnerability he didn't share.

He got up and looked Seifer in the face, licking his lips.

He said nothing.

  
* * * * ** * *

_I'd like to teach you all the rules  
I'd get to see them set in stone  
I like it when you chain me to the bed  
But then your secrets never show_

Seifer watched Squall across the classroom; he was frowning as usual, rocking his chair back, balancing perfectly. Seifer felt his pulse start to raise, just from the sight of the negligent ease with which Squall controlled his own body. Impatient with whatever he was staring at on his screen, he hooked stray strands of dark hair behind his ears, twitching with irritation when they fell back in his face. Seifer was fastidious about his own hair: always short and never out of place; he couldn't understand how Squall could bear to have his so long and always, always in his eyes… but fuck, it was so hot. An image flooded Seifer's mind, of Squall coming back from training in the rain, all that wet hair dripping down his face, his neck; closing his eyes and shaking like a dog. Seifer played the memory back in slow motion, smiling to himself, heat building in his body.

The terminal in front of him beeped: a message from Raijin. Seifer ignored it, unable to take his eyes off Squall any longer than strictly necessary.

~_Fuck_,~ he thought, ~_he looked so beautiful this morning_~ asleep in Seifer's bed, all that mess of dark hair spread on white pillow: innocence. Despite the black leather and the smouldering eyes and the brooding, there was something in Squall that was untouched, waiting. Seifer was hungry to capture that essence, tame it, imprint himself on Squall's soul as he'd thrust into his body: hot, hard, unforgettable. He wanted to be the first: not just the first to take that lean, pale, beautiful flesh and make it shudder; he wanted to be the first to Squall's heart, the one he'd always remember. Of course it couldn't last forever, but Seifer wanted Squall to think, every time he made a new conquest, every time he found a new body to wrap that cool beauty around: _this is nearly as good as Seifer._

Seifer had tried. He'd been willing to be vulnerable, even, to reach that place in Squall's icy heart where there must, sure-to-gods, be feelings. But it didn't work. Affection made Squall cringe away from him; it was only the cold, hard steel of Seifer's arrogant lust that got any emotion from him. Not love, of course. But some kind of feeling: respect, anger, not quite hatred.

_That would do._

Seifer wrenched his eyes away from Squall and tapped his keyboard to read his mail.

_For now._

* * * * * * *

_I need to feel you - you need to feel me  
I can't control you - you're not the one for me, no  
I can't control you - you can't control me  
I need to feel you - so why's there even you and me?_

  
* * * * * * *

_I love the way you rake my skin  
I feel the hate you place inside  
I need to get your voice out of my head  
Cause I'm that guy you'll never find._

Squall watched Seifer's sleeping face in the moonlight, more peaceful than he'd ever seen him. _Just like Seifer_ \- of all the places in the world, he finds peace under a rough blanket on a beach during field manoeuvres.

Squall threw another log on the fire, enjoying the flare of warmth that washed over his skin. He pulled his jacket over his bare shoulders, hugging his knees, watching.

It was ending: this he knew.

Their final exam was just a week away: well, Squall's, anyway. Hyne only knew whether Seifer would pass this time. Squall felt a pang of something like guilt. He knew when Seifer had lost his grip on becoming a SeeD, he could name the hour. The day they'd first started this game between them, when their rivalry had moved from the training ground to a narrow dormitory bed. When Squall had learned to abandon his body to hard, fiery pleasure while he kept his loneliness and pain and love locked safe in his soul.

_After all this time, you've never really had me._

But it was such a delicious surrender. Every time Seifer took him was a release from the anguish that dominated his thoughts most of the time, fear of loving, of losing.

That's why being with Seifer was so safe: Squall really didn't like him. He respected him as a rival, he needed him as a nemesis, counterpoint, a negative reflection confirm his own identity, make him real. But he'd never love him.

Of course Seifer would never admit to having any attachment to Squall other than physical need and control. But from time to time an unguarded look, a glance, a touch gave him away.

When they'd arrived at the beach that afternoon, hot and sweaty and covered in geezard innards, Seifer stripped them both and they plunged into the sea to cleanse and satiate their bodies, tight and buzzing from battle. They'd wrestled each other in the waves, limbs tangling until their mouths fell hungrily on each other and they collapsed in the surf, Seifer sliding down Squall's body to wrap his hardness in tight lips, a rare gift.

And later… Later, as they lay by the fire and Seifer rubbed soft, warm oil into Squall's tired muscles, coaxing a level of relaxation out of him that Squall rarely felt; later, when Seifer slid inside him, hard, slick with oil, teeth and fingers marking Squall's back, sighing "fuck, fuck, fuck you, Leonhart," as he came. Later, as he slipped into sleep under the scratchy Balamb-issue blanket; as he reached out one hand, touched Squall's fingers with his own. Then, semi-conscious, Seifer's lips spoke his dream and betrayed him.

Then, Squall knew it must end.

* * * * * * *

I think you know all of the rules  
There's no expressions on your face  
I hope that someday you will let me go  
Release me from my dirty cage.

Seifer looked out of his dorm window across the fields of Balamb. He wasn't watching for Squall. Was he?

He turned back to Hyperion, laid across his knees, and continued his daily ritual of polishing and cleaning and sharpening.

There was an alternative. If he failed tomorrow, there was another way.

_~A better way.~_

The voice that whispered in his mind was ageless comfort: a confident hiss like a trainer made to his boxer in the ring, a nurturing validation.

_~A better way.~_

Seed was constricting him, suffocating his potential, stealing his dream.

His dream. His eyes flickered to the window.

_It has to end, but I can't end it._

_Why can't I end it?_

The door opened. No knock, no warning. Somehow Squall must have arrived back without passing Seifer's window. He stood there, framed in the doorway, weight on one hip _~damn, Leonhart, you never could stand straight~_ eyes smouldering through ragged fringe.

Seifer felt the breath catch in his lungs.

"Fuck, Leonhart, you could knock."

Squall shrugged, clicked the door shut behind him. "Why, got someone else here?" He lifted the corner of the blanket on Seifer's bed, peeked underneath. "No, I guess not."

Quick as a flash Seifer whipped Hyperion in an arc to rest its point at Squall's pale, pulsing throat.

"Remember your manners, Leonhart."

Squall barely flinched, clear grey eyes burning into Seifer's.

"Make me."

Seifer stifled a noise that was halfway to a sob, kicked a foot behind Squall's knees to unbalance him. Squall allowed himself to be thrown, landing softly on the bed. He kept his eyes on Seifer's, cool acceptance, as Seifer stripped belts and jeans, slicked oil with unsteady fingers, and pushed inside, gripping Squall's pale hips with tense, bruising fingers.

Seifer knew all the while, even as Squall groaned and raised his hips to meet Seifer's thrusts, that he couldn't win. Not this way.

_~There is another way.~_

He bit his lower lip as he came, hard enough to draw blood. Better that than release the scream of Squall's name that welled in his chest.

* * * * * * *

_I need to feel you - you need to feel me  
I can't control you - you're not the one for me, no  
I can't control you - you can't control me  
I need to feel you - so why's there even you and me?_

* * * * * * *

The next day there was thunder, fire and blood.

And finally, as they had both known there would be, one way or another, escape.

* * * * * * *

_I need to feel you - you need to feel me  
I can't control you - you're not the one for me, no  
I can't control you - you can't control me  
I need to feel you - so why's there even you and me_

_I love the way you look at me  
I love the way you smack my ass  
I love the dirty things you do  
I have control of you_

_I need to feel you - you need to feel me  
I can't control you - you're not the one for me, no  
I can't control you - you can't control me  
I need to feel you - so why's there even you and me_

_You're not the one for me, no._

**Author's Note:**

> *Author's note: there is as usual a variation in the lyrics depending on the version of the song and interpretation of the listener. For info, the ones I've used here are taken from the sleevenotes to 'Come Clean'.


End file.
